and so it has happened. i've finally left home.

the keys of my apartment are currently jingling in my pocket. it's an amazing sound. and an incredible feeling is holding onto it.

jackie and i spent all of yesterday (literally) unpacking and such. we got up at eight, by eleven we were leaving for the apartment because we had to sign the lease. and from eleven until one in the morning, when i finally went to sleep, we were still unpacking and arranging. the bulk of the stuff was jackie's. as i've moved from house to house SEVERAL times in my life, i learned an appreciation for the simple lifestyle: having less property meant having less things to lug about when you moved again. thus, it only took me one trip in the car and an hour of packing/unpacking before i was finished.

jackie, on the other hand, has lived in the same house for quite some time, so she had EVERYTHING from her childhood still. i don't even think she's managed to bring over a third of it from her old home. so that is what kept us busy.

the first night there was a mixture of elation, giddiness, depression, and fear like i've never known before. i was happy as all hell to finally be doing this, to finally be out of my parent's claws and not be living like a bum in someone else's home, but i was also terrified. that really surprised me. because, as my parents and i have had problems ever since i learned how to talk, i've lived with other people for long stretches of time as a bit of a break. and never once have i ever been homesick. i've never been as scared to be away from my family as i was last night.

i don't know why that is. maybe it's because this is the first time i'm fully responsible for myself. and if i fuck up, there won't be anybody to save me except for me. and that frightens me.

i was also depressed by the lack of money we had. i got an eight dollar check last week. i should've saved it for food, but instead i went and spent it all on cds. i was furious about that, because when we moved in, we had nothing to eat. jackie had borrowed twenty dollars from her mom so we could buy some toilet paper and other eccential things, and by the time that was done with, we only had eight dollars left.

at some point i called my parents (we went ahead and hooked up the phone, cos neither of us wants to be without one.) because i needed to get my pillows and the last few things i'd left over there. my mom asked us if we needed any dishes, so i told her we could use some pots and pans. then she mentioned food. i thought a second, realized that the only thing inside our fridge were five cans of dr pepper and the remains of a six-pack of beer that jackie's mover friends had brought over.

"yeah, if you happen to have some food you don't want, we'll take it."

jackie drove me over to my old house, where i discovered BAGS and BAGS of food sitting out for us. it was enough to make me cry, and i would have if i hadn't been shocked speechless. so we took the food home and unloaded it, filled our pantry and i set about to make dinner.

the most complete meal thing they had was a box of Tuna Helper, so i started that. but i had no milk or butter. i took the last of the money and walked down to the grocery store, which is just at the end of our street. during that walk, i don't know how many times i started crying and shaking. i was terrified. i had eight dollars then, but what would i do tomorrow? i don't get paid until next friday. what will i do for food until then?

i still don't have the answers to this, but i feel a little bit better about things than i did last night. jackie went out with a friend of her's to go see another friend play guitar at open mike night, so for a few hours i had the house to myself. i unpacked and cooked at the same time, then called a bunch of my friends to share the details with them. that in itself made me much happier, because i don't really like being alone.

on the one hand, i love getting everybody out of the house so that i can have a break and some quiet, but it's a good thing that i have a roommate. i couldn't handle that quiet all the time. it would make me really really lonely, and i'd hate it.

so right now i'm over at kathryn's house again, because jackie had to leave for work early and i didn't have another ride. i'm getting ready for work myself. i'm aching and sore as ALL hell, but it's a good kind of soreness. it's the kind of pain that lets me know last night did happen, and i didn't just dream it all up.

so, i'm finally gone. i don't know how often the site will be updated now until i get my own computer (which will be soon, hopefully), but i will try to make posts from time to time. either at kat's house or from a library. if you send me email, don't expect an immediate reply. and if you're one of my closer friends online, email me and i'll give you the address/phone number of the new house. i will welcome all calls and letters with huge, open arms.

thank you everyone. i can't say much more than that.
but thank you nonetheless.

– love, Josh M

honey can you hear me
in between, been draggin a dragonfly
trying to get my mansions green
after i've GREY GARDENS seen
honey won't you hold me tight
get me through GREY GARDENS tonight.

21 February 2002 at 10:07 am | No Comments »
the daily things

Valentine's Day in two days. it never fails. doesn't matter who i'm with or what i've done in preparation to avoid this fact, i'm always alone on V.D. during the entire kent relationship, he was always somewhere else. yes, he was in canada. but, i mean he didn't even call me on the phone or anything that day either.

doesn't matter what i do. i'm always alone on this day.
so i think, when i finally meet a guy who's actually there to take me somewhere on Valentine's Day, that this guy will be worth keeping around me. but i don't see the point in this stuff anymore. jackie's told me i'm more fucked up when dealing with relationships than she is. maybe she's right. i've dated only seven guys, which isn't much compared to every other gay guy in the world. but every one of those relationships ended disasterously. ryan and james are the only ones i still talk to, i think, and i hardly ever speak to james. i just can't get along with anyone, i guess.

a funny thing actually happened to me a couple weeks ago. but i have to do some back-tracking to explain it.

sometime last year i met this guy online named jason. he was seventeen at the time (while i was fourteen), and he lived in new orleans. he was absolutely gorgeous. dark hair, beautiful blue eyes. he was on the swim team at his school, so he was really muscled. plus, he was sweet and creative and clever and et cetera. then, he was bi. and he thought i was cute.

sounds wonderful, yes? well, he had a girlfriend. and i still don't understand that relationship at all. she was hideous, extremely fat, ugly. all of that. and i'm being nice. and jason constantly told me how much they fought and how much he wanted to break up with her. so i kept screaming, "then fucking do!" because i really liked him, and i wanted to date him. but no, it didn't happen. we got into a fight and didn't talk for a couple months, then he randomly imed me one day. this happened last year, when i was living in slidell. we started talking again a few weeks before i had my performance in that play, so i invitited him to come see me.

and he actually did, which is incredibly considering he had to drive fourty-five minutes to a city he'd never visited before to see me. but he came, which was amazing to me.

except that he brought his girlfriend with him. so that made me mad and i didn't really talk to him again much, and then suddenly he just disappeared. i never heard anything about him at all.

that is, until a few weeks ago. since kathryn's house is a couple minutes' walk from the mall, i've been going there quite often. and one of these trips brought me to Hot Topic, where who should i find standing before me.

i freaked out and pretty much (yet suave-ly) ran out of the store. i went in a couple days later and he was there again. and he was there the next day. yadda yadda. turns out he worked there, not that he was a weird Hot Topic stalker. but he never recognised me. so one day i got some courage and walked up to him and asked him what his name was. this led into a conversation where he finally realised who i was, and then we talked about "the good old days" for a few minutes. then, taking control of the situation (hah.), i told him i had to go, even though i didn't and i really wanted to talk to him. but i didn't want to appear clingy, just as i'd finally found him again.

i went in the store a few days later, just as he happened to get off for his break, so he invited me to come with him. when i left this time, he gave me his number. so i gave him mine.

i called him once, to see if he wanted to go out anywhere with me. sortof a date, but not really. he told me he'd call me when his shift ended. he never did.

and i still haven't heard from him. i've been too busy lately to go into the mall, so i haven't heard from him either. it didn't surprise me too much, though. i've grown to expect this of him. i guess i hoped that maybe not talking to him for two years would've made him change some, but it didn't. he's nineteen now, i'm seventeen. that's the only difference.

i really hate guys. and it's another Valentine's Day, and i'm still all alone.
g'night.

it's friday night and she's all alone
he's a million miles away
she's dressed to kill, the tv's on
he's connected to the sound
and he's got pictures on the wall
of all the girls he's loved before
and she knows all his favourite songs.

12 February 2002 at 8:38 pm | No Comments »
the daily things

i have my First Official Day Off tomorrow. wee.

but no, today i'm not in much of a good mood. i had to work all day and when i came home i smelled like a big mac. sigh. but it's money. so i can't bitch too hard. except that i have to stand around and my back is already awful…. gah.

and then, i hate boys. incredibly. i have to many reasons to despise them and hate them and never want to ever have anything to do with them again. but– and at least i now have reached the point where i know this and can joke about it– come tomorrow a pretty one will pass me by and i'll go through all of this again. it's a vicious cycle, circle, fuck. it's a goddamn knifeblade. and apparently i'm hopeless. god.

i had more i wanted to say. but i can't remember now. oh well.

i'll write more tomorrow, probably. good night everybody who has some other place to be. you can take me with you, some time.

you don't need my picture on your wall
you say you need no one
and you don't need my secret midnight call
i guess you need no one

10 February 2002 at 11:38 pm | No Comments »
the daily things

so work's over with for now. wee. i got to leave half an hour early because things started to slow down, so the manager was like, "go home, go have fun." so i clocked out and left. i also got next week's schedule, and i have a lot of hours. basically, i work five times a week, eight hours a day. more or less. which is very good, cos it gives me much money.

i get my first check friday, but only the work i did yesterday, today, and tomorrow will be on it. plus, i have monday and next sunday off.

today was a much better work day. heh. maybe it won't be as awful as i feared. but i'm gonna run off for now. i'm probably (and hopefully!) going to go out with a friend of mine tonight, which will be very nice. g'night!

9:16 AM

i had my first day of work yesterday, and right now i should be getting ready to go in for my second, but the world stops for journal updates! i work at a mcdonalds nearby; yeah, i'm quite aware of all of the stereotypes. but this isn't by choice. i'm only working there because the job i really wanted wouldn't let me work full-time, and i have to have some money in order to pay for my rent. so, as much as i despise it, i have to work someplace.

it's actually not as bad as it probably could've been. i have a new-found respect for fast-food workers. i've never been so stressed out in my life. i had to work from eleven am until five pm, so i got to experience the full glory of lunchtime madness. and, as half the other workers said, lunchtime on a friday is a very bad time for a new worker to begin training.

but i think i did all right. i have to work in the back for a few days, putting the hamburgers together (thank GOD i'm not doing the grill.), but it's only for a few days, and then i get moved up to the register. which will be much better, i suppose.

but! i made about thirty-five dollars yesterday. i beamed with pride when i read the clock-out receipt. thirty-five dollars that i earned completely by myself. my work, my blood, my burns from renegade hamburger meat. it made me proud of myself that i got that money on my own. it makes me proud of myself that that money is going to go towards paying for my house, which i also have on my own. or at least half of it.

but now i've got to run, because i have to go get dressed and such. maybe today i'll be working on the register. i can only hope, because the food-handling scares me. but ohwell, it's money either way, and money is a thing that i think i need to have right now.

have a great day, everyone.

9 February 2002 at 4:38 pm | No Comments »
the daily things

so it took me nearly two and a half months, but now i can finally update. i did a whole new layout (well, sortof, but i'll get to that later) as you can tell. i finally succumbed and set up blogger for one very important reason. no, two. first of all, the computer i'm using is so old and slow that it's a miracle i can get internet explorer open. so i don't have any of my fancy-smancy html and graphic programs avaliable to me. therefore, i have to start a new layout cos i can't update my site with the old one. second reason: blogger is very portable.

that is, i can update the site from any place that has a computer, so it opens up many new opportunities. previously, i could only update from my house. this accessability is very good, because i'm moving into my own apartment in two weeks, and i will not have a computer. thus, no updates. but now i can.

so i guess you're wondering "what the fuck happened?!" well, now i'll explain. my parents kicked me out of the house the first week of december. i won't get into the reasons behind it because i'm not really angry with them anymore, and my decision to stay outside of my house has also been of my own will. we (my parents and i) got into a fight, and my dad made me leave the house. etc. so i went to a neighbour's house to use the phone. i called up james (my now ex-boyfriend; again, i'll explain in a bit.) and asked him to pick me up. he arrived a few minutes later, total night-in-shining-armour (or so i thought.), and brought me over to my friend kathryn's house.

i'm sure i've mentioned her before. any of you who've been reading this site for a while know all about her. she was my best friend when i went to NOCCA two - three years ago, and we've kept in touch ever since, despite our combustable personalities and daily attempts to piss the other off. so i came here (the house where i am currently typing this up), and i've been here ever since.

those first couple of days were very stressful for me. i felt uprooted, confused, abandoned, etc. i didn't know what to do. i missed two days of school (at franklin, that's a big deal.) before i felt sane enough to deal with things. so i called the school. after much debate with the assistant principal, i agreed (mostly under threat of truancy.) to go to school the next day and talk to a social worker with my parents.

very big mistake.

i won't get into the conversation and such, but it was bad. in the end, the social worker's reccomendation was that i stay out of my house until the family started getting counciling together. so i started going to school again, not really wanting to, but not seeing any other choice. i was really attending the school illegally, because kathryn's house is located in metairie. only fifteen - twenty minutes from new orleans, but far enough away to put my residence out-of-district. therefore, if the school found out that i still wasn't living at home (the social worker lied to the assistant principal and told her i'd moved back in with them.), i'd be kicked out.

so, lots of stress for me to deal with. in addition to all of that, james, pulling a complete and total 180 on me, decided to break up with me a week after all of this started. i'm still pissed at him over that. not that he broke up with me, really, but that he had to do it in the middle of all of that, for a stupid fucking reason. he had a problem with the fact that he was two years older than me, because he told me that i was more of a little brother to him than a boyfriend. bah. boys.

anyway, all of this happened right before exam week. needless to say, i bombed. my exams did horrific things to my grades. in the classes that i was barely passing, i failed. in the ones that i was doing all right, the exams brought my grades down to barely passing. the only classes i didn't fuck up in were english and theatre. and, oddly enough, i managed to pull a C in french, even though i was failing it prior to the exam. this was just another thing for me to contend with.

after exams ended, i was off for christmas holidays. a total blessing. i needed a break more than anything else. relations with my parents grew marginally better. my mom even stopped by to give me my christmas presents. this was the first christmas/new year that i've spent some place other than my house. i still don't know how i feel about that.

the christmas vacation also brought about another change. for the first time in a while, i was regularily seeing and talking to jackie. i've never mentioned her before, but she's kat's best friend. they knew each other long before i ever came around. well, when i was still going to NOCCA, kat introduced me to jackie. i hated her from the very start. she was bitchy, opinionated, etc. i thought she was rude, arrogant, someone i didn't want to be around. i don't know if my opinion of her has changed too much now (aside from the not wanting to be around part), but jackie is now one of my really close friends. i find it ironic. i guess when we first met, it was a bad time for the both of us. we got into a really bad arguement and i never talked to her again until kat's birthday, back in september.

but jackie has been a big well of strength for me during all of this. when i've been depressed, she's made me push forward anyway. when i've been out of ideas, she's lent me some of her's. when i've almost considered giving up, she's kicked me in the ass. i really appreciate it.

it was the arrival of jackie that definately changed the course of things for me. jackie (and in some respects, kathryn.) were both in my situation a year or so ago. school was a problem for the two of them. jackie (who also went to NOCCA for visual arts.) couldn't handle the stress of both schools, so she first quit NOCCA, then dropped out of regular school. kathryn stayed in school up until the very last day of her senior year, but her grades were barely under the mark for graduation. so the two of them left school, and maybe it was their bad influence that made up my mind.

ever since i left home (and really, since i started franklin) school has been a problem for me. i haven't understood how i could give the classes my all and still barely float. i've realized a lot of things through all of this. one of them is the fact that school is designed for the average in mind. the outliers (myself included) don't fit into that mold, so for us school is a problem. i'm probably more well-adjusted than most, because i'm sure that a good many of those high-school dropouts didn't leave because they were stupid.

i guess you can see what i'm getting to. i weighed my options. stay in school when it was causing me horrific pain (the stress of it really got to me. towards the end i started to lose my hair, i actually lost weight — i went from one-twenty to eighty pounds. when you are as small as me, that's a disasterous problem.) for as long as possible, or leave it, get my GED, work for a year, and then go to college. it made much more sense to me to do things this way. so i told my parents (they opposed vigourously, ofcourse) and in the end they finally allowed me to drop out. it's not like they had a choice, because i had already decided to stop going to school anyway. all i was waiting for was them to sign the paper, because i am a minour and i can't really drop out of school without their permission.

but that's all over and done with now. jackie and i have an apartment together, because she plans on going to the university in the fall and she needed to move out. i agreed to move in with her because i can't stay at kat's house forever, though i'm sure they'd try to convince me otherwise. i have a job; not the best of ones, but it's money either way. my stress levels are down considerably.

i've finally taken life into my own hands, and i like it. so i guess you can see why i don't resent my parents for what they did. i was a problem for them to raise, i know. i'm too loud to listen to authority when i disagree with it, especially the unwavering kind that they expected me to obey because they were my parents. i know things are easier for them too, since three kids in a house is a hard thing to handle. i'm an adult now. maybe not legally, but i don't think that matters. i've accepted responsibility for myself, i've started taking care of myself. in two weeks, i will be supporting myself. if that doesn't make me an adult, then i know many people older than eighteen who are still children.

so, when jackie and i move in to our apartment (it is gorgeous; two bedrooms, two bathrooms, with a fucking huge balcony. and my half of the expenses is only about four hundred a month.), i'll start a whole new chapter of my life.

when i was a little child, i never could think this far ahead. my mind shut down when i tried to think several years ahead of me. i have to live in the moment. but i never expected to be where i am now, who i am now, none of it. i talked to one of my best friends from my old-old high school today. heather d. struck me totally by surprise by calling the house here, when i didn't expect it at all. we talked for a long time, and after i told her everything that had happened to me, she told me that she was proud of me and admired how i've handled things.

i don't think it's admirable. it's either sink or swim. it's either handle things or cry and complain and get swallowed alive. and i'm too much of a fucking fighter to let that happen.

so for all of you who feel sorry for me, don't be. the simple fact that i'm able to sit in front of this keyboard and type all of this up should be good evidence that i'm doing all right. because i am. i'm doing fine now, and i'll still be okay tomorrow.

goodnight, everyone.

7 February 2002 at 2:03 am | No Comments »
the daily things